Michael Ma

Log is a compromise of normal 8 bit color for better dynamic range.  You can lose some detail because you are recording colors with less disparity and gradient information between two objects.  Plus, it takes a lot of knowledge, effort, and experience to grade 8 bit color because any small adjustment in post can and probably will clip a some color information in some parts of the image.  Then you have to start manipulating individual colors rather than doing a white balance adjustment, which will never look as good as white balanced raw image.

Avoid using log when possible by improving your lighting.  When you really need the dynamic range and you want to sacrifice some detail, you can use log.

Shot for shot, the Canon is better.  Better color accuracy, dynamic range, no distracting oversharpening.  Even how the subjects move...more pleasing motion blur.  With that said, NX1 is a very capable piece of hardware that I'm sure most can do lots with.  Samsung keeps improving a big way.  I can't wait to see what's next.  I'd love to see them incorporate Samsung's SSD technology into next versions of these cameras.  $10,000 Sony proprietary memory cards perform about the same as a $400 Samsung SSD for the computer.  They require almost no power these days.  If storage bitrate was the bottleneck, they got that area covered.  NX1 II with raw video, 4:4:4, highspeed...would be easy for them.

Hmmm...the RX10 IV can't be good news for fps1000 (kickstarter) which still hasn't shipped yet.

​I agree.  Even H.264, if you drop it into Premiere Pro, it creates gigabytes of intermediate frames behind the scenes.  If we can play H.265 video smoothly in some players already, it just sounds like Adobe just needs to create their own codec for H.265 like they have for many other formats.  I'm sure it's easier said than done, but I don't think we're going to need a leap in processing power to drop H.265 files onto Premiere Pro.  It's going to be slower than H.264 for sure to work on the NLE, kinda like how it feels to work with H.264 on a older machine.

​Adobe explicitly lists the new XF-AVC Canon codecs just announced with their 2 new cameras.  We can see that Canon is definitely scratching Adobe's back.

"...including new support for Avid DNxHR media, Canon XF-AVC, ProRes 4444XQ, and Panasonic 4K_HS..."

Source: http://blogs.adobe.com/premierepro/2015/04/premiere-pro-next-colorful.html?scid=social43472736&adbid=884596851583649&adbpl=fb&adbpr=341657335877606

I love how Canon artificially introduces limitations to make their pro line more premium.  12 stops of dynamic range...  Begging for a firmware hack.

I don't think Samsung phones were ever crappy.  Maybe they were behind in the design and UI in the last 2 years, but they are fighting back strong these days.  Their internals for at least their flagship devices were always the highest specs available the time they are released.  The NX1 is their flagship camera.  I think what Samsung does well is respond to the demands.  Better than other camera manufacturers who think they know what's better for the customers and not listen to the feedback.

Exciting!!!  I'm now totally sold on the camera after the update.  Now if someone can tell them the fine differences between bad unwanted chroma noise and the potentially usuable luma noise that produces film like grain, that would make this camera even more perfect.

Samsung being Samsung, the NX1's successor is probably less than a year away with even more impressive features.  Some things on my wishlist: 5-axis IBS, ProRes, dynamic range (as always, more he better), smooth autofocus, programmable focus macros.  Maybe they'll even make a lower megapixel one like Sony does with the A7s.  It's all icing on the cake after this killer update.  The outlook of the gear has become exciting once again seeing as though the big camera makers are wanting to save features like 4K for their unaffordable professional cinema lines of producs.

One thing worries me looking at the samples...it looks like video and it doesn't have the cinematic look. Am I right?

Also colors...mmm looks like shot on a smartphone.

Most of the shots are very contrasty 0-255.  A bit over-saturated.  All can be adjusted in post.  Also, it looks like it was shot in 60p or 30p.  As long as the camera itself shoots ins 24p at 4K and 1080p, I will give them the benefit of a doubt.

I thought there was some magic with Samsung Galaxy S5 with the BSI ISO CELL sensor and how it does Richtone HDR video 4K.  That feature with the H265 4K is on this camera has the chance to do something remarkable.  Seriously looking forward to some samples!

The problem is 8-bit and noise when colors are pushed and the the contrast is accentuated, which accentuates the color of noise.  If you must work with the footage, you can try noise reduction before the grade.  If your noise reduction tool lets you profile the problem areas, maybe that would be better.  You can re-add grain later if needed.  

If the subject doesn't move at all, you have Photoshop CC, you can run videos through Camera raw filter, put a feathered mask outside the subject, and get really heavy handed with noise reduction and 0 the saturation.

Best to reshoot with a stronger fill light.

Downloaded the 1080p version and there's nothing wrong with resolution from the camera... looks very sharply resolved to me. However the upload is too heavily compressed. A shame he did not upload it in ProRes LT.

He now looks to be sharing the raw files from the camera.  mfilms.us/1poNklL

Update:  Oops...I didn't see that the link was posted already.  My apologies.

The shadows are very noisy, although they are workable...just barely.  I now wonder if Sony made some last minute adjustments so that it doesn't compete against their own products.  If that smoked fish video was made with the production camera, could they produce the same results?  I wonder what they have to say about the noise and if they notice a difference.

I'm guessing it'll have 85MB raw files....imagine working with those kind of raw files at 24fps when we get to 2030 and everyone is running 16K!  Maybe it won't be too bad then.

Video lit by a single firefly.   :D

That should be the new litmus test for shooting in low light.

I wish Panasonic did the GH3 users a solid and gave us Log and focus peaking.

And also the updated RW2 format with embedded thumbnail like the GH4.  And made lower the input gain for shotgun mic audio by -5dB.

Exact same framing and DOF?  Suspicious.

 

Michael

Yeah, his videos are mostly bogus.  He posts videos from Canon and Nikon's channel with music replaced.  Is the 4K recorder available for the A7S?  Is the A7S available?  would Sony send a A7S demo to a YouTube channel wth 2k subscribers with no website, and a YouTube a banner that's just an image from Nikon's website, I would say no to that as well.

This just in: http://goo.gl/6pXSyN

dpreview's iso tests of the Sony A7S

Something just occurred to me after looking at this.  We've been looking at a straight RAW to JPEG conversion the whole time.  Maybe even the black and shadows raised?.  Of course there will be noise at ISO12800 in RAW.  You can get the 5D Mark III to look noisy at ISO 800 if it's dark enough in RAW.

Looking how well the in-body noise removal looks for JPEG, I expect the video to perform as good as the smoked fish video, especially resampled to 1080p.

Also New Features for Premiere Pro CC being pushed out today.  I can't link it because it's tied to my account that's logged in but here's a cut and paste:

Adobe Premiere Pro CC (2014)

And so much more

Also includes: A Reverse Match Frame command; a Track Select Backwards tool; improved Project Panel search and sort times; Mercury OpenCL support for Intel Iris architectures; and more.See full release notes

Just clicked on the "what's new" link in my Photoshop Creative Cloud update that's being pushed out today and at the very end it says:

"the ability to export 3D LUTs; support for new video formats including Sony RAW and Canon RAW; and more."

That's a good feature imo.  I would prefer to grade everything in Adobe Camera Raw if at all possible.

Only up to ISO 200.   At ISO 3200 the Sony is about a stop ahead and by the time it gets to ISO 12800 the Nikon is more than 2 stops behind.    Even the 5d mk iii is two stops behind at ISO 12800.

 

13 stops at base ISO is still pretty good though maybe not quite what was expected but how many have been waiting to see it as a good light camera?     Above ISO 1600 and things look great.

Maybe 15.3 stops is with S-Log2 for video after some noise filtering?

What this jpeg fails to show you is just how dark it is in the shooting environment is.  f/1.8, 1/100s, ISO12800 for that level of exposure....it is very dark.  Of course there will be noise for stills.  I'm sure video will go through many tricks of noise reduction.  

What's surprising is noise filtering on stills work extremely well.  Virtually remove all the noise without visible loss of detail, without sharpening and still maintain that sharp look.  I've never seen noise filtering work so well in such a noisy image.

False alarm.  This camera is still amazing.

Would love your feedback.

I liked the story.  Although the ending, I would have left the last few seconds to the imagination.  Maybe she got her hands loose, but hey, it's not my story.   :)  It left me wanting to watch the entire story, although the last few seconds made me think, well, maybe that's the end of the story.

I thought your shots, movements, cuts, and audio were very good.  Maybe next time, avoid a white shirt in direct sunlight to avoid blown out highlights.  (Something I learned from watching your video.)  I feel there's a lot of room for lighting corrections.

Here's my quick and dirty guide to color correcting.

1.  When a person is the subject, prioritize skin, especially faces when making any color choices.  When people's skin look alien to the species in respect to the lighting of that shot, it can't be overlooked.

2.  Correct lighting first.  A good starting point is to have an even distribution of pixels from black all the way to white.  Then color grade.

3.  When cross processing, work with complementary colors for the highlights and shadows.  A classic combination used in films today is beige and teal because beige is the color of skin (which can't be eliminated out of the palate), and teal complements it.  A great tool to look up complementary colors is a free online tool called Adobe Kuler.

4.  Grading is great but try to shoot without needing to grade/correct when possible.  If lighting, set, props, wardrobe, makeup, and camera profiles are calibrated, then you shouldn't need to make any changes, and any minor changes will be effortless.

5.  A common misconception going around today is that all detail in the highlights and shadows need to be recovered and preserved.  Unnecessary detail in the shot can lead the eyes away from the subject.  Don't be afraid to up the contrast to where you lose visible detail for the benefit of the overall image.

6.  Instead of having a half dozen layers of adjustments which will take forever to process for the entire video, create custom LUTs by grading a single frame, then apply the LUT using Red Giant's LUT buddy.  If you're using Premiere Pro CC, apply the LUTs you've created with Lumetri instead as it is much faster to process.

7.  Blown out highlights are sometimes inevitable.  One thing you can do to improve the image is to bring the whites down to the highlights and to add color to the highlights that match the lighting.

8.  There are tools to grade within tools like Premiere Pro.  For minor adjustments you may only need to play with RGB Curve and Levels.  They don't take any processing time either.  For more powerful plugins to grade the popular ones are Colorista II, FilmConvert.  FilmConvert is faster, easier to use, but more limited in functionality.  I heard Davinci Resolve is better but you need a Cuda compatible graphics card to use it.

Rumor says it will run on Android. Forget all the pro stuff. But at least you'll be able to play Angry Birds on it.

Nothing wrong with Android.  Having looked at the NX, Android can interface with cameras with full manual controls.  The large touchscreen works well for video and quick control adjustments.  What's going to matter is the processor...will it have the hardware to do hardware based encoding of with the codecs people want.  The Galaxy Note 3 4K video is surprisingly descent at 50mbit/sec, but people are looking for higher bitrate and a better codec.  Codecs like IPB, ALL-I, DNxHD, ProRes, XAVC.  Definitely not H.264 because of it's abrupt clipping of the darks and lights.  Does Samsung know that H.264 is good for playing video, not good for recording with it?  I hope so.

I hope they do something exciting like put a their ultra-low power SSD on there with an option for 4:4:4 1080p 14-bit RAW with 20 stops of dynamic range.  Heck, why not 4K 4:4:4 14-bit RAW.  Their SSD's do about 450MB/sec sequential write (3600mbits/sec).  5x faster than the fastest CF card, and it goes up to 1TB.  If they need a faster processor than anything out right now, they can print those too.

Let's not hope it does 50/Mbit h.264 4K like the Galaxy Note 3.   :ph34r: